Spinach Mushroom Blue Cheese Salad

A delightful, hearty, meatless salad loaded with umami that brings together garlic butter sauteed mushrooms, hard boiled eggs, crunchy croutons, red onions, crumbled blue cheese and addictive maple garlic roasted tomatoes. Drizzle with your favorite ranch or blue cheese dressing for a celebration of flavors, textures and colors that’ll make your taste buds do a happy dance!

I made this salad way back in early April (several times!) when I first tried making those maple roasted tomatoes and the crunchy garlicky leftover biscuit croutons. I was thinking a spinach salad would be so good with them and blue cheese would be the perfect counterpoint. But it needed mushrooms … usually I slice up fresh mushrooms for my salads, but for this one, I wanted sauteed mushrooms, with a good amount of garlic and a nice buttery flavor. And then I hard-boiled an egg (in my Instant Pot) and added that because, protein. And if you hard-boil an egg just right, it really is a marvelous thing.

Did you know pressure cookers are brilliant for cooking hard (or soft) boiled eggs? I discovered this in the early stages when I first got it and for the longest time, the only thing I used it for was making soft-boiled eggs so I could cook up a Scotch egg for my son, who’d decided Scotch eggs were a wonderful meal option. I gotta share this with you … it’s so freaking easy! And the eggs peel perfectly, even when I use fresh farm eggs (like this one). See how beautiful and yellow the yolk is? This egg is fresh from my friend’s happy free-roaming chickens.

I just HAVE to share this “perfect hard boiled egg” trick with you! All you do is put a cup of water in your Instant Pot with the little rack in it, set a whole egg (or as many as you want to cook) on the rack, then set it to pressure cook for 5 minutes (for hard-boiled), 3 minutes (for soft-boiled) or, if you want a medium-done yolk set it to 4 minutes. When done, do a quick release of the pressure then use tongs or a spoon to lift out the egg(s) and plunge them into an ice water bath to stop the cooking. It works like a dream … no more overcooked yolks and I can always get them to peel without sticking to the whites!

Enough about the egg, I need to rave a little about the tomatoes … these maple garlic roasted tomatoes are SO sweet, they taste like candy! But then there’s this little garlic bite that adds some intrigue and makes them totally addictive. You’ll be lucky if you can save some for the salads … but please do! It’s so worth it.

Throw those lovelies on a salad with sauteed mushrooms and oh man, you have a meatless salad has so much umami going on. The contrasting flavors and textures from this salad all together are like a party in your mouth. Meaty, warm, garlicky sauteed mushrooms, sweet soft candied (oh so addictive!) tomatoes, a little bite from the red onion, a little creaminess from the cheese, crunch from the croutons with the greens from the spinach to balance it all out … drizzled with creamy ranch, it makes me want to go make it all over again. If I only had the energy. I’m not feeling very well today … I think it’s just a little cold but it’s getting me down. Also, right now I’m totally out of fresh mushrooms and tomatoes. Sad face. So instead, tonight I’m stuffing my face with eggplant fries I pulled out of my freezer from last summer smothered with some really good butternut vodka sauce I made recently that I’ve been meaning to blog. I’m seriously thanking my previous self for stashing some pre-cooked food away for the future.

What about the dressing? No, I didn’t forget the dressing! I want to give you OPTIONS for the dressing. You can totally use store-bought dressing to save yourself some time and effort. I reached for some homemade ranch I had ready in my fridge. I like to keep ranch on hand at all times just for occasions like this. Here are some of my favorites that would ALL go well with this salad:

• Cashew Ranch (vegan)
• Bacon Ranch
• Sundried Tomato Ranch
• Avocado Ranch
• Blue Cheese Yogurt Dressing

Also, for better flavor, I recommend buying a block of blue cheese and crumbling it yourself. The taste is SO much better than the pre-crumbled bits you can buy in a container, and IMHO, you usually get more for your money.

Anyway, I hope you try this salad, even if you don’t make the homemade croutons or your own dressing, please DO saute the mushrooms in garlic and butter and roast up those maple garlic tomatoes. You won’t regret it!

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